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By George Friedman | June 5, 2012
The
U.S. military for years has debated the utility of counterinsurgency
operations. Drawing from a sentiment that harkens back to the Vietnam
War, many within the military have long opposed counterinsurgency
operations. Others see counterinsurgency as the unavoidable future of
U.S. warfare. The debate is between those who believe the purpose of a
conventional military force is to defeat another conventional military
force and those who believe conventional military conflicts increasingly
will be replaced by conflicts more akin to recent counterinsurgency
operations. In such conflicts, the purpose of a counterinsurgency is to
transform an occupied society in order to undermine the insurgents.
Understanding this debate requires the understanding that
counterinsurgency is not a type of warfare; it is one strategy by which a
disproportionately powerful conventional force approaches asymmetric
warfare. As its name implies, it is a response to an insurgency, a type
of asymmetric conflict undertaken by small units with close links to the
occupied population to defeat a larger conventional force. Insurgents
typically are highly motivated -- otherwise they collapse easily -- and
usually possess superior intelligence to a foreign occupational force.
Small units operating with superior intelligence are able to evade more
powerful conventional forces and can strike such forces at their own
discretion. Insurgents are not expected to defeat the occupying force
through direct military force. Rather, the assumption is that the
occupying force has less interest in the outcome of the war than the
insurgents and that over time, the inability to defeat the insurgency
will compel the occupying force to withdraw. Read More »
